WELLESLEY for

Wellesley High School Committee

  Wellesley High School weather vane
 
   
  The existing Wellesley High School is:  
  • Structurally Sound  
  • Educationally Functional  
  • Historically Important  
     
 

 
     
  Dear Resident:

The site for the proposed new Wellesley High School consists of wetlands, riverfront (Fuller Brook), and a 100-year flood plain. It is complicated by levels of buried peat and silt. This creates an unstable foundation for the proposed new building. Dr. Jerome Carr, a Geologist and Geophysicist, brought this out clearly at the Wellesley Special Town Meeting on October 20, 2008. He explained that a significant earthquake could cause the collapse of the proposed building as designed by project architects, Symmes Maini & McKee Associates. He also said building on buried peat deposits could cause structural problems because peat is very weak. Despite Dr. Carr’s findings that pilings would be needed, SMMA has eliminated pilings in this project and said pilings were not required. This is in marked contrast to the well-built existing 1938 high school and its 1956 wing that were properly built on solid pilings. The 184-page report on these issues, which Dr. Carr cited, was not completed and submitted to the town until after September 5, 2008. All these developments have put the project in serious doubt.

It is most disturbing that SMMA was also project architect for Lynn Classical High School, completed in 2000. That building was designed and constructed improperly with shallow pilings and slabs over a former dumpsite. The slab construction resulted in the sinking of the building. It has cost the city of Lynn almost $25 million in repairs and countless ongoing lawsuits.		  
     
 
  Wellesley must avoid this dangerous and expensive route  
     
 
  $25 million in repairs are required for the foundation of Lynn Classical High School.  
  The school is sinking into the former landfill upon which it was built eight years ago  
  at a cost of $37 million. The part of the foundation that is sinking was built on slabs  
  instead of pilings. The architect was SMMA, the same architect that has designed  
  the proposed new high school in Wellesley. This SMMA design for Wellesley also  
  calls for the use of slabs, not pilings, on unstable buried wetland soils.  
 
Visit the official Lynn Classical High School website page dedicated to this subject:

http://www.lynnclassical.org/Classical Updates2005-2006.htm
 
       
   
  Read detailed articles from the Townsman outlining  
  why the 1938 Wellesley High School Building and its  
  1978 Wilbury Crockett Library should be preserved.  
       
       
     
 

Read the Facts and Myths regarding the current high school project

    
       
  The architects had for their inspiration the tower of Stockholm’s city hall, designed by Ragnar Ostberg and constructed between 1909 and 1923.

Imagine Stockholm in Wellesley!

  
   
     
  A tour of the original 1938 building on

Saturday morning, December 2, 2006

  

[ Sign my Guestbook] - [Read my Guestbook ]
[Guestbook by TheGuestBook.com]

TC This website is maintained by the Wellesley High School Preservation Committee, launched November 30, 2006, and last updated December 15, 2008. Lee Herterich, WebMaster

HOME About Us WHS Past WHS Today WHS Future Townsman Articles Contact